During this process, the HCHA chairman and vice-chair were replaced. Rankin was bought out of his contract for $137,000, but his successors found the agency’s books were grossly inaccurate, inflating its assets by nearly $6 million and hiding the fact that there was no unrestricted cash on hand to make the severance payment (or pay some other invoices). Rankin has since sued to get his severance money.

Interim CEO Tom McCasland said HCHA plans to unload four vehicles, adding it looks like they’ll bring $20,000 to $25,000 each. The agency also is working to recover and sell four Tahoes HCHA donated to Harris County following Hurricane Ike in 2008.

“This was a weird deal from the beginning and that’s why I remember it,” said Keith Branner, the county’s Director of Fleet Services. “I could never understand it. Why are they donating these fancy, fancy, high-dollar Tahoes? They were just fully loaded. They were like $50,000 Tahoes – really nice. LTZ, top-equipped. That’s what caught my eye originally on these things.”

The other thing that caught Branner’s attention was that HCHA wanted to donate the vehicles specifically to five employees of the sheriff’s office who were assigned to OEM. Branner told them it didn’t work that way; assignments are random. Ultimately, newly elected Sheriff Adrian Garcia and two of his command staff received the Tahoes (one was later totaled in a collision), as did OEM director Mark Sloan and a colleague.

Spokesmen for County Judge Ed Emmett (who oversees OEM) and Garcia have said both men are working to get the cars (or perhaps payments representing their current values) back to HCHA. It’s unclear how that will be accomplished, given that the cars were given to the county for free but cannot be similarly transferred back out of the county’s inventory, Emmett spokesman Joe Stinebaker said. The two cars in OEM’s possession also have been modified for emergency use, complicating matters, he said.

HCHA board chairman Beto Cardenas said Garcia jokingly called him “the repo man” when the two discussed the topic at a recent dinner function.

“It’s a step in the right direction because what we’re doing is making certain that our core mission is being achieved, and our core mission was not to have an excess fleet of surplus property,” Cardenas said. “Taking away these vehicles and selling them does not make us less productive.”

Emmett said he met with Cardenas, board member Graciela Martinez and McCasland in April and told them to do what they had to do to recover financially.

“If that means selling off vehicles, that’s fine,” Emmett said. “They said, ‘We think we ought to get those back and sell them.’ I said, ‘If you decide to do that, they’re yours.’ Whatever they need us to do.”

The inter-local agreement did not pass without opposition. Recently appointed board member Gerald Womack wanted a clearer idea of the inventory being unloaded.

“I don’t want to sign this inter-local agreement with the county and they go and sell these cars for peanuts. It should be market value,” he said. “We need money; we should get the best value. The county sells them for the best value they can get and I’m not sure that’s always the market value. I’d first want to know what are the cars worth.”

Vice-chair Peggy Kruckemeyer, the board’s longest-tenured current member, abstained, a choice she’s made repeatedly since the reform-minded Cardenas took the helm in March. “Is there a reason we just don’t do it?” she asked of selling the vehicles.

“Well we need to figure out how to do it legally,” Cardenas responded. “This was the best option. You can’t just take something to a parking lot, Peggy, and think that that’s the best thing without getting competitive bids.”

As for why the housing authority started a car fleet in the first place, the minutes from the Nov. 19, 2008, HCHA board meeting state, “Mr. Rankin advised the Board of the emergency purchase of nine sport utility vehicles immediately after Hurricane Ike for transportation needs relating to disaster relief activities.” The agency kept some and donated the rest.